Venezuela and China Mark Decade of Strategic Alliance, Sign Accords

[Peace Patriot]

Venezuela and China Mark Decade of Strategic Alliance, Sign Accords

By EWAN ROBERTSON - VENEZUELANALYSIS.COM

Mérida, November 24th, (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela and China today signed new accords promoting joint development projects, as Venezuelan authorities highlighted the deepening of bilateral relations since the two countries began a strategic alliance in 2001.

The accords in energy, technology, telecommunications, industry and agriculture were signed by the Venezuelan and Chinese governments at the close of the 10th Meeting of the China-Venezuela High Level Joint Commission, which took place in Caracas this week.

“In truth, this strategic alliance, that is already more than a decade old, has been shaped in example of how cooperation between sovereign countries should be, a new model of cooperation, a new paradigm based on mutual respect...Venezuela and China are great friends, great comrades”, stated Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as the accords were signed.

According to the energy agreements signed between the two countries, three new electricity plants will be constructed in Venezuela by June 2016; an installation of 900 megawatts in the Junin industrial complex, and two of 300 MW in Anzoátegui and Zulia states. The Commission also evaluated existing joint projects in electricity production, including plants currently being constructed in Carabobo and Aragua.

“These are very big projects and are part of the national government’s response to the electricity situation that presented itself in 2010 . Without a doubt, they are going to increase our generation capacity to stabilise our national electrical system”, explained Venezuelan energy and petroleum minister Rafael Ramirez, as he presented the results of the 10th Meeting yesterday.

In petroleum, China has opened a new US $4 billion worth of credit to increase oil production of the mixed Venezuelan-Chinese company Petrolera Sinovensa, including the refinement and transport of Venezuelan crude.

Accords signed in areas of science, technology and intermediate industries involve the installation of an antenna factory between Telecom Venezuela and Chinese company ZTE Corporation, and develop the first stage of an Electro-Domestic Industrial Complex in Miranda state.

Ramirez further reported that with Chinese involvement, new factories linked to Venezuela’s steel and aluminium sectors are being constructed to contribute toward Venezuela’s mass housing construction program, launched in April.

A Decade of Deepening Bilateral Relations

The China-Venezuela High Level Joint Commission was established in 2001 to develop and coordinate the newly entered strategic relationship between the two countries.

Commenting yesterday on the significant development in Sino-Venezuelan relations over the past decade, Venezuelan Minister for Planning and Finance Jorge Giordani stated “Venezuela and China are called on to be the drivers of a new paradigm of integral development in the world. This tenth meeting of the High Level Commission symbolises the achievements of a decade of joint work in which we have been developing one of the most diverse and important relationships Venezuela has in the world”.

According to Venezuela’s Presidential Press, the two countries have signed 318 accords since entering into the strategic relationship, including in the areas of energy, infrastructure, science and technology, agriculture, education, culture, and social affairs.

Minister Ramirez explained that an important factor underpinning this relationship is the mutual interest between China as the world’s second largest economy, and Venezuela as holding the world’s largest reserves of crude oil.

Giordani confirmed yesterday that exports of Venezuelan crude to China, beginning at 45,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2005, have now reached 410,000 bpd. The Venezuelan government hopes to raise this to one million bpd in coming years.

In return for Venezuelan oil exports, China has become a major investor of development projects in Venezuela. 2007 saw the creation of the China-Venezuela Fund, a financial mechanism for joint projects which now contains US $32 billion and funds 160 socio-productive projects in Venezuela, the greatest amount of Chinese financing in any Latin American country.

Chinese socio-productive investment has included training of Venezuelan personnel and technology transfers. Following an agreement signed in 2005 China also built and launched Venezuela’s first satellite, the Simon Bolivar Satellite, in 2008. China has also become Venezuela’s second biggest trading partner after the United States. Worth US $3 million a decade ago, trade between Venezuela and China is now $17 billion per year according to Giordani.

Venezuelan chancellor Nicolas Maduro defined Venezuela’s growing relationship with China as based “on profound values of respect, equality, and joint development”, and that they follow a foreign policy aimed toward “the re-conquest of independence and sovereignty, a product of the Bolivarian revolution led by Hugo Chavez”.

“We are on the correct path in the construction of a new world, a multi-polar world of peace, without hegemony, that has to arise,” concluded Maduro.

Venezuelan authorities have stated that deepening diplomatic relations with China and other alliances with countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America and Europe is part of promoting a “multi-polar” world order which counteracts US hegemony.

Meanwhile China’s growing commercial and diplomatic relationship with Venezuela and other Latin American countries such as Brazil are often held by international observers as evidence of waning US influence in the region.

http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/6651
(Creative Commons License)
(my emphases)

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This article pretty much speaks for itself. What has occurred is a strategic development alliance between "China as the world’s second largest economy, and Venezuela as holding the world’s largest reserves of crude oil," and Venezuela's government sees this as enhancing Venezuela's sovereignty and independence (vis a vis historic and often brutal U.S. domination) and is laying foundations of a multi-polar world.

I mostly want to comment on the last point of the article: "China’s growing commercial and diplomatic relationship with Venezuela and other Latin American countries such as Brazil are often held by international observers as evidence of waning US influence in the region."

I think that this is both true and in some ways tragic--the latter not because U.S. monsters like Exxon Mobil have gotten their noses punched by the Chavez government. (I'd like to see their noses punched here--and a lot more: dismantling of big corporations and seizure of their assets for the common good). It is the lesser U.S. businesses and interests--those willing to compete on a "level playing field"--and our interests as a people, in social justice, fairness and democracy, that bring the word "tragic" to my mind, when thinking about U.S./Venezuela relations over the last decade.

The people of Venezuela elected the government that they wanted--one that would give them a "New Deal"--and did so in honest, fair elections. And what was the U.S. reaction? A U.S. supported rightwing/military coup attempt in 2002. An oil bosses' lockout in 2003. A USAID-funded recall election in 2004. Secret CIA budgets for dirty tricks and black ops. Massive USAID funding of rightwing groups, causes and candidates. And non-stop slander and hostility toward the Venezuelan peoples' freely chosen government throughout the period, to this day.

The opportunity for the U.S. to be seen as fair, as promoting democracy, as supporting poverty reduction, education and other bootstrapping for the poor majority, and as being seen as "the good guy," for once, in Latin America--given the U.S. history of often brutal interference--was UTTERLY LOST, right off the bat, with the first of many democracy revolutions in the region. Venezuela was the pioneer and all the other leftist (majorityist) leaders who have since been elected, starting with Brazil's Lula da Silva and Argentina's Nestor Kirchner, looked to that maltreatment of Venezuela's government as the key to their own relations with the U.S. Most of South America and much of Central America now wants to exclude the U.S. from its counsels. They have created a Latin America-only institution, CELAC, for this purpose. They see the U.S. as malevolent on an on-going basis. The U.S. supported rightwing/military coup in Honduras was next, six months into the Obama administration--after a failed U.S. attempt to overturn Bolivia's democracy in late 2008. As Lula da Silva stated in his final address to the nation, "The U.S. has not changed!"

There are some quite good aspects to these developments. Latin American countries most certainly need to assert their sovereignty and independence and most certainly need to band together for collective economic and political clout--which they are doing. And the social justice revolution that is occurring--started by Venezuela and now spread all over the landscape--is of critical importance to Latin America's future and to its prosperity. They needed to get out from under "Wall Street"'s dictates, the dictates from the World Bank/IMF and the dictates from Washington DC with its dreadful prescription of "free trade for the rich" in Latin America, in order to liberate the energies and creativity of their people through social spending on education and health care and other stimuli, and by Latin America operating on the world stage at long last free of the U.S..

But there are also significant downsides--mostly for us--to this missed opportunity. If U.S. hostility to Venezuela doesn't lead to outright war--which it could well do--it has established our country, in the minds of most Latin Americans, as hostile to the interests of most Latin Americans in a permanent and irredeemable sort of way. This could have serious consequences for us if our country is ever again attacked--from within or without. Think of Ireland's neutrality in WW II after 400 years of oppression by Great Britain. What did Ireland have to gain by defending Great Britain? Nothing! Or think of a western hemisphere divided--between pro-democracy, independence-minded Latin America and a predatory capitalist/fascist U.S. We are no longer the "beacon of democracy." That is over! It is questionable if we even have a democracy any more, here.

There are some things I don't like about this China/Venezuela trade and development pact. One of them is that China is one of the biggest contributors to global climate destabilization and they should not be encouraged to consume more oil. Another is China's labor conditions and its neglect and mistreatment of rural areas, small farmers and peasants. In Venezuela, workers have solid labor rights and one of the best deals in Venezuela's or Latin America's history, and the Chavez government has also strongly addressed land reform issues and has provided considerable help to small farmers. How is that going to work--with such a big discrepancy in the treatment of workers and small farmers?

I don't necessarily object to trade with an undemocratic country--influences can go both ways and peaceful trade is an excellent tool, if you want to encourage democracy. I have yet to see a genuine promotion of democracy by the U.S. since the end of WW II and the Marshall Plan (reconstruction of Europe) and the U.S. occupation of Japan, which was mostly well done. Since that time, the U.S. has instead brutally suppressed democracy movements--in Iran, in Vietnam (2 million dead), in African countries and throughout Latin America--and the Soviet Union, when it was finally squeezed into collapse, turned into one big Mafia. Maybe Venezuela will succeed where we have failed. I am very much in favor of trade and cultural exchanges if it is not based on dominance of one party over the other. Venezuelan officials say this isn't. I hope they are not misreading the situation. I don't think they are but you have to have some concern about it. It's a tossup between what would certainly be bloody domination by the U.S. (as in Colombia and Honduras where assassination of labor leaders and other advocates of the poor has become routine) and potential domination by China in the dim future. Venezuela has many trade alliances and also has the backing of the region in remaining independent and it has the steadiness and savvy of its people in defending their hard-won democracy against a U.S.-backed coup attempt and other assaults. They are wary of dominators.

The U.S. has only itself to blame for this alliance, if they don't like it--and it's very probable that our rulers hate it. Venezuela needs investment, credit and trade, and the U.S. has been nothing but venomously hostile to Venezuela for no good reasons at all--only bad, greedy, Corporate Ruler reasons. Venezuela and its many allies in Latin America have gotten "the message." As Lula da Silva said, "The U.S. has not changed."